"I advocate a substantial reduction in the average amount of formal education and the proportion of the population attending higher education institutions.
This is necessary because present higher education serves very little positive function but wastes vast economic resources -- including the opportunity costs of alternative uses of millions of man-years of the most productive individuals.
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Higher education should focus on elite professionals and a small amount of pure, vocationally-driven scholarship -- a few percent of the age group cohort going on to higher education has been found optimal in most societies, and it would vary between populations and civilizations."
Taken from: http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-iq-allergy.html
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I agree very much with this.
From my experience in JC 4 years ago (one of the top 2 pre-university schools in the country), I felt that the lowest in my school were just barely suitable to enter university. The majority would have no problems coping with the curriculum on a cognitive level; however I strongly felt that many entered university not because they were internally driven to do so (out of genuine interest/passion) but because of external instruction/pressures (YOU WANNA WORK AS A CLEANER!!!?).
This is probably even truer for the majority of JC students outside of the top 2 elite JCs. I feel that all in all, only a minority of University-aged students actually possess the requisite intelligence, temperament and interest to genuinely participate in higher education.
There will be those with many disparate interests, short attention spans, those who prefer informal/different learning environments, or have interests in fields separate from those offered in typical universities.
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Presently, the majority of students who enter JC proceed to enter university. Many of them do so despite struggling through JC or lacking personalities/interests suitable for the university curriculum. This is due to the Singapore government/society's over-emphasis on the value of a university education.
The government wants to mould its citizens towards a "higher-value", "knowledge-based" workforce; however, you cannot mould the populace to be suited to higher education if that is not their field of excellence.
Many individuals who are more suited to other vocations such as the arts, sports, manual-specific jobs like carpentry, plumbing, landscaping, hawkers, chefs, are thus pushed into "higher-value/knowledge-based" industries which they are unlikely to enjoy or excel at.
University graduates are more likely to receive significantly higher pay and more prestige. Consequently, parents and students attempt to grab a university education at all costs. Alternative means to evaluate a candidate's employment suitability such as apprenticeship, job-based training programs, industry-specific evaluation tests, personality tests are generally not available or employed. Instead, the criteria generally used are educational qualifications, a few subjective interviews and one's resume.
Little attention or support is available for industries such as the arts, humanities, sports whilst pay and prestige is low for technical vocations.
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From MSF's reports, the percentage of university graduates increased by roughly 500% within 20 years from 1990 to 2011.
Thus, we see a devaluation and perversion of the university degree. A university degree today is much less valuable or significant than say 20 years ago. It merely indicates that you are slightly smarter than the average population. Rather than being a place to pursue further academic education; the University is now seen as a place to increase's one's negotiation prospects when job-hunting. Many who do not qualify for NUS/NTU/SMU desperately seek to pay their way into a degree in private or overseas universities.
This partially explains why the arts and sports scene is so poor in Singapore. Many individuals whose talents are more suited for those fields instead shoehorn themselves into a university education and the consequent "higher-value/ knowledge-based" jobs. Only extremely driven individuals and mavericks attempt to participate full-time in the arts scene. As for sports, the few significant achievements we obtain are usually bought from foreign lands.
The heavy influx of foreign workers might also partly be a consequence of this obsession towards "higher education". Singaporeans who might be suited towards industries outside of the "higher-value/knowledge-based" category do not do so due to the low pay and lack of prestige associated with these industries. As such, rather than foreign workers complementing the local workforce, certain sectors experience a foreign "take-over".
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Singapore's attempt to assert itself as a "knowledge-based" economy is understandable but erroneous in its scope and execution. As in any society, there still exist wide disparities in the intelligence, personality and interests of the populace. The obsession towards higher-paying "knowledge-based" jobs leads to a situation where those employed in "knowledge-based" jobs are less competent or internally driven, and other industries are entirely neglected and become bereft of local citizens.
A healthy, flourishing, vibrant society requires competent, internally-driven individuals in all levels and sectors of the country- not simply the "knowledge-based" ones. This requires a reshaping of Singapore's approach towards higher-education and its present economic/societal structures into one that pushes and enables individuals to participate in fields which they are internally-driven and suited towards. Policies must be made to suit individuals; not individuals made to suit policy.
Junnies Jun Yang
TRS Contributor